The Grass Minstrel

Sometimes
I wake
and before me
the familiar hills rise,
tendered by shadow,
burnished by light,
and for once I see
the high black gloss
of carpenter bees
folding their bodies lovingly
around stamens,
and the last monarchs
on the last asters
open and close
their numinous stiff wings
like the wordless pages
of a book,
and it becomes
for a moment possible
to forgive the world
and its myriad beings
for being
exactly as they are,
and to sing
among the lesser minstrels of the grass
even as the burnish fades
toward winter
and toward night.
............. jwa